I have started work on this, and progress is pretty swift. The idea is that prior to the loss of Karthwasten, Markarth was little more than a big village (but old) in the shadow of Elfstone Keep. When Karthwasten was lost, the King moved his seat of power to Markarth, and a flood of Nords (both commoners and noblemen) moved to Markarth from County Karthwasten.

Personally, I would like to see creative use of elevation using Direnni terraces. Some kind of cross between a medieval fortress and Machu Picchu.

Try to contain the city within a certain number of exterior cells and don't have buildings seeping into neighboring cells like with Karthwasten. I'd suggest keeping it under 50 interiors. 45 might be the sweet spot. Maybe use ruins and fortifications to make it look larger than its interior count suggests.

From what we've seen on the IRC, it looks like we have no more than 40 interiors here, which is an appropriate number.

The idea is probably something along the lines of buildings going up the hill and one main path running towards the castle on top, at least I suggested something along these lines and there seemed to be some kind of overall agreement here. It's not easy to pull off the elevation things here because the castle itself will be adding quite a bit to the height.

- Elfstone Keep, functioning as both throne room, palace, barracks, prison and administration center
- Manors for thanes
- Marketplace
- Mages Guild guildhall (small, mostly just an office and a sleeping hall)
- Thieves Guild presence in an Imperial tavern near the marketplace
- Fighters Guild guildhall (competing with Companions who don't use guildhalls other than Jorrvaskrr)
- Both meadhalls and taverns
- Docks for trading with Haafingar and beyond*
- The College of the Voice
- Imperial Cult shrine

*Haafingar controls the mouth of the Karth, and thus have Markarth in a stranglehold when it comes to taxation of ships and potential blockade of wares from elsewhere.

I have an idea that Markarth has been home to a large number of Colovians due to the college, which is why you can find an Imperial Cult shrine here, and why Colovians should constitute perhaps 20% of the population (60% being Nords). The city has also been home to a large number of Nord nobles and lords since the former capitol Karthwasten and a lot of territory was lost, thus ushering in Nord refugees, both commoners and nobles.

I was thinking about it and I'm not sure. Places of worship themed around the Nord gods would be a cool addition, but I think we should decide how Nords practice religion in the first place. I had an idea that "southerners gather and worship their gods in their temples and chapels with talk and songs - we, husbands and wives of the old country, honor the gods through our actions every day".

Yes i thought about adding it at the docks but right now it's four farm houses, so... Plus there'll be plenty of room for that in Haafingar's massive dockside.